Can We Conservatives Now Say, “I Told You So”?

During the Health Care Reform debates of 2009-2010, the politicians justified forcing the PPACA through on party lines, by telling us that the plight of the uninsured would be solved if only the bill became law.

Now that the National Open Enrollment (NOE) is 2/3 over, the math does not compute.

When the law, that was supposed to eliminate the number of uninsured people in America who are uninsured, was passed, 16.4% of the American population had no health insurance. Four years later, the National Open Enrollment is over half-way finished. However 16% of the population is still uninsured.

It appears that the most expensive law in American history has only affected 0.4% of the people it was supposed to help.

In 2013, even though there are more than 45,000,000 Americans without health insurance, the White House stated, on record, that they would be satisfied if only 7,000,000 Americans enrolled in health insurance through the government sponsored exchanges and claimed a tax-credit.

If the exchanges only produce as expected, that means that around 1,000,000 fewer Americans claimed “subsidies” to help pay for their health insurance than were expected.

Senator Mitch McConnell (R – KY) made an interesting observation when he said, “the new enrollees in Obamacare exchange plans are actually folks who were already insured.”

I am certain that the truth is somewhere between the two extremes.

In my practice I have had the pleasure to help several people who had no health insurance in 2013. There is no question that the A.C.A. has helped them.

However, I have also been contacted by several clients who had their existing health insurance cancelled and wanted to buy one of the new Obamacare approved policies. There is no amount of political spin that can convince them that they were not harmed by Obamacare.

The most recent Gallup poll indicates that, in the area of granting insurance to the uninsured, Obamacare has been a failure.

Additional Observation

Perhaps it is my rose-colored glasses but when I look at the graph, I notice that the number of Americans who had no health insurance was significantly lower in 2008, when we had a conservative congress and president. Even though the number of uninsured Americans decreased in January 2014, there are still more uninsured Americans than there was when Obama, Pelossi and Reid took power.